Archive for the 'Pakistan' Category

From Gal Luft While Washington is mulling over what to do next in order to weaken Iran economically, this summer the Islamic Republic has taught us a lesson in strategic maneuvering, taking major steps to bolster its economy and geopolitical posture by positioning itself as an indispensable energy supplier to hundreds of millions of people.

From Gal Luft While the world’s eyes are focused on Iran and Pakistan, little attention has been paid to the two countries’ decision from last week to move ahead with their plans to connect their economies via a natural gas pipeline. What may seem like a standard energy project could have profound implications for the […]

From Walter Laqueur President Obama in his charm offensive in Europe and Turkey said all the right things—about a new peaceful world order, about a world without nuclear weapons, about Turkey’s greatness, about America’s responsibility to take a lead solving the global financial crisis because it began in the United States, about America not being […]

From Martin Kramer The appointment of Dennis Ross as “Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for The Gulf and Southwest Asia” (announcement here) has caused some puzzlement, in part because the geographic focus of his title seems fuzzy. This is especially so for “Southwest Asia.”

From MESH Admin The online journal Heartland: Eurasian Review of Geopolitics devotes its latest issue to “The Pakistani Boomerang,” and provides this map of the situation on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, as prepared by Limes, an Italian review of geopolitics. The map shows the tribal areas, sites of clashes between Pakistani forces and jihadists, and cross-border […]

From Daniel Byman U.S. and world attention is focused understandably on the Iranian nuclear program. The list of reasons to worry about an Iranian bomb is exceptionally long and, for the most part, legitimate.

From Martin Kramer An editorial in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, entitled “Target: Pakistan,” mourned Benazir Bhutto, whom it described as “the highest profile scalp the jihadists can claim since their assassination of Egypt’s Anwar Sadat in 1981.” The editorial then offered this analysis: With the jihadists losing in Iraq and having a hard […]